The Rest Of The Pattern

There is something I should have written in my last post. I was thinking it, but I failed to put in down on paper. I failed to tell you the rest of the pattern.

Here is the pattern as stated in that post:
I. A movement starts in the church and it is sold to the people as a way to adapt the gospel to the current culture.
II. As the movement unfolds it becomes evident that it results in a weakening of the authority of Scripture.
III. A result of the abandonment of Scripture is a plethora of radically unbiblical doctrines and behaviors.

Here is the part of the pattern not mentioned:
VI. Another result of the abandonment of Scriptures is the death of the second generation. There will be no second generation.

Remember our discussion of the plight of Europe? Europe lead the Christian world in the implementation of classical liberal theology. Liberal theology was an adaptation of Christianity to modernity. Now the churches in Europe are so empty, they are being sold as apartments, bars, and mosques.

In America, we didn't see the coming of liberal theology until the early 1900's. By the end of the 1900's those denominations that became liberal were so decimated they resorted to national TV ads. They're dying. Their sanctuaries are empty on Sunday. Interestingly, liberalism brought them down, but they haven't learned. Liberal denominations have not returned to Scriptures. They have gone further away from the Scriptures. Untethered, they have no absolute reference by which to judge anything. They started denying the virgin birth. Now they approve of sodomy. As Paul told Timothy in I Timothy 3:13, "...evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."

How did these denominations become so deceived in the first place? It was a seduction that is so common in Evangelicalism today, you will recognize it as soon as I say it. The seduction is the idea that since no one is being converted, we should change the gospel to be more attractive. Sound familiar? It is driven by unholiness in the church and its members. Rather than getting on our faces and praying for the harvest, we sit and whine about the gospel. Rather than going out and saying the gospel, we blame the gospel when no one is saved. Rather than making sure our lives are right, we say God's gospel is wrong. He made the gospel too hard. We see no growth not because the gospel doesn't work for us, but because we refuse to work for the gospel. Have you told your neighbors?

When the gospel is adapted to the culture, there is an influx to the church that is willing to make that compromise. Interestingly, the influx is disobedient church goers, not new converts. But that little detail is never addressed. It is enough that our church is growing in numbers and the offering plate is full.

Give it few years, though, and the reality hits. You see, church members eventually die. Then what? Children of liberals don't go to church. They leave for one simple reason: A kid doesn't get excited about believing nothing. Only very sophisticated churchie adults can do that. The children are never converted because they have never heard the gospel. They will not follow a belief system that says, "Don't believe." In that way they're smarter than their parents.

Now we are seeing the Emergent. It's doing the same thing as classical liberalism did--adapting the gospel to the current culture. Liberalism adapted to modernity, the Emergent to postmodernity. Both are whores. It is reaping the same sort of converts that classical liberalism did: church goers that despise the demands of the gospel. They can go to the new "gospel" and be religious without the rigors. And their kids will never hear the gospel and they will never honor the Scriptures.

The end of American Evangelicalism is upon us. Unless we repent on our bellies.

In Christ,
Phil Perkins.